


Brotherhood

by HighlyOpinionatedNerd



Category: Gintama
Genre: and I just wanted to play with that concept a little, but the whole sibling relationship thing they have going on is my favorite thing ever, hope you enjoy!, it may perhaps be a little ooc on some of their parts, this was a good place to put some of my headcanons about the boys from back in the Joui War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 12:23:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15707169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HighlyOpinionatedNerd/pseuds/HighlyOpinionatedNerd
Summary: Everyone, no matter where they are or who they're with, likes to tell stories about their siblings. Especially people who grew up fighting in a war alongside their three brothers.





	Brotherhood

“It’s still raining,” one of Katsura’s men observed, sneaking a quick glance through the blinds on the window. “How long do you think this is going to last?”

“Probably at least all night,” one of the others answered him. “Maybe on into the morning.”

“Longer than that, I’d say,” Katsura said. “There’s a wind from the northwest. This time of year, I’d say that means the rain’ll probably keep up for at least another two days.”

“Really?”

“Mm-hmm. I got pretty good at predicting the weather back during the war.”

Katsura and his Joui faction were in the process of setting up a new hideout, something they did about once every month and a half. It was necessary for them to move often, if they were going to stay safe from the Shinsengumi’s prying eyes.

But on this particular day, the weather was putting a bit of a damper on things. Their work had slowed to a crawl and then finally stopped as the sun went down and the street lights flickered on, blurry and distant-seeming in the downpour. Now they were all just sort of sitting around, sharing ration bars and talking. It was the kind of quiet and peaceful evening that they didn’t get to enjoy that often, and Katsura wasn’t about to be the one to make them go back to work.

“I never thought about that before,” the first man said. “But I guess the war did last for almost a decade, so it makes sense. Did you have to do a lot of camping outdoors, Katsura-san?”

“Oh, yes. It was actually a pretty rare experience for us to have the opportunity to spend the night inside.”

More men were listening now, turning in Katsura’s direction and watching him with wide eyes full of wonder and respect. Most of them hadn’t actually fought the amanto themselves; they were the ones who had lost brothers and fathers to the war, the ones who had been too young or untrained to fight back then.

“Whenever it rained, we’d set up tarps on poles to keep dry,” he explained. “If we were near a forest, we’d take cover in the trees. It wasn’t as big of a deal as you might think. We had plenty of other, more important things to worry about to be bothered by a little rain. In fact, sometimes it was nice.” Katsura leaned back against the wall of their new hideout, eyes closed, remembering. “My brother loved the rain,” he said quietly.

“You have a brother, Katsura-san?”

“Mm-hmm. I have three, actually.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Me neither. And they fought in the war with you? Wow…”

Katsura opened his eyes and glanced around. Everyone was still watching him. Apparently he’d unintentionally piqued their curiosity.

Well, nothing wrong with that. Nights like this were made for storytelling.

“I’m the oldest of the four of us,” he said. “The second eldest is the one who loves the rain. He was always kind of a standoffish kid, not really one to show his emotions on his sleeve or anything like that. He liked to keep himself to himself. I never really thought that being a leader suited him, but I never brought it up because following would have suited him even less.

“Anyway, he loved it when it rained. Sometimes he would go off on his own, without a word to anyone, for hours at a time. And if you followed him, you’d find him just sitting on the grass, letting the rain fall on his face. I think it calmed him down. He’d come back soaking wet, but for the night he and my other brother wouldn’t argue, at least.”

“All of you didn’t get along?”

“Nope! The second and third eldest fought like cats and dogs. Except when they were teaming up to bully the youngest, of course.”

“What about you?”

“I was the mediator that kept us all at peace- is what I’d like to say, but in truth, I wasn’t above a little arguing with them, myself. You know how it is, right? You love them, but you’d also kick their ass if given the slightest reason to. Especially the younger two- my god, sometimes they could be so hard to deal with.”

“How old were you all when the war first broke out?”

“Young. Too young. Just kids, really. But we had to fight, we all agreed on that. There was nothing else we could have done.” Katsura sighed, shaking his head. “Although, no matter what our reasons were for doing it, it still came at a cost to all of us.”

“How so?”

“Well, take the third eldest as an example. He was an incredibly talented soldier, a brilliant leader, and an inspiration to all of us.

“But he hated it. The cause was just, and the means were necessary, but he hated it. He never said so in as many words, but I could tell. He used to suffer from such horrible nightmares; I’m a light sleeper, so I’d hear him crying out in his sleep, thrashing around like someone was holding him down and torturing him. They got particularly bad after battles that involved a lot of casualties, civilian or otherwise. I wouldn’t be surprised if he still has them to this day.”

His men nodded in understanding. Most of them had their own bad nights every now and again. Everyone did, at least to some extent, when they lived this kind of life.

“I remember thinking that it wasn’t fair,” Katsura went on, frowning sadly. “I thought that, for the nightmares to have been that bad, he must have been truly pure of heart. Even if he never really let it show when he was awake. And I remember wondering what that said about me, since I never had nightmares nearly as bad as he did.”

Elizabeth gently tugged on Katsura’s sleeve to get his attention and held up a handwritten sign. _‘I think you are very pure of heart, Katsura-san,’_ it read.

“Thank you, Elizabeth. I like to hope so, at least.”

“What about your other brother?” one of the men urged him. “The youngest?”

“Ah, the youngest. Rather than pure-hearted, I would describe him as having the heart of a child. A little naive, and without much common sense to speak of, but he’s a good man nonetheless.

“His favorite thing to do was to watch the skies at night. See, there was a lot of space junk up there falling to Earth back then, courtesy of the amanto and their ships. He would get so excited whenever he saw the little flashes in the sky, and he’d make sure to point them out to us. We always told him that they probably weren’t falling stars, just falling space debris. He always said that since we had no way of knowing which ones were falling stars and which ones weren’t, he just had to wish on all of them.”

“Where are they now, Katsura-san?”

“Oh, here and there. They’re all still fighting, in their own ways.” Katsura smiled. “Whenever the Earth is in danger, my brothers and I will be there to protect it. That, you can count on.”

 

“You know,” Makoto said sullenly, “when I was young, I used to dream about travelling through space. I wanted to see everything there was to see, and explore different worlds and all that. I never thought that, once I got up here, it would be so…so...”

“So what?”

“So _boring_.”

They were sitting in the ship’s observatory, where they usually spent their evenings when none of them had anything better to do. Bansai and Takechi were drinking sake and playing chess, a game which both of them were absolutely terrible at. Makoto was sitting on the floor, meticulously cleaning and servicing every part of her weapons.

Takasugi was there too, watching the chess game and filling the whole room with his pipe smoke. The fact that he had bothered to join them spoke volumes as to the lack of anything more interesting to do than sit in the observatory and drink with the others.

“How could you possibly say that about something so beautiful?” Takechi asked, gesturing at the view outside the window.

“It’s not that impressive anymore. It all kinda looks the same after a while.”

“Mmm.” Takasugi took a long drag on his pipe. “‘There is much to see in the world, more than one may witness in a lifetime. Yet upon reflection, it seems to me that most of what there is to see looks quite similar,’ right?”

“I didn’t know you were into poetry,” Bansai said.

“Poetry? It doesn’t rhyme.”

“It doesn’t have to rhyme. Shinsuke, do you remember the poet who said that? I know we studied that one in school, and his name is on the tip of my tongue…”

“I don’t know. I just heard it from my brother.”

“Your brother?” Makoto got up from her guns and moved to sit at the table with the rest of them. “The one who broke his ankle jumping off a four story roof on a dare?”

“No. Different brother.”

“How many are there?”

“Three.”

“Wow. And to think, one of them quoted poetry so well that even Shinsuke remembered it.”

Takasugi shrugged indifferently. “It’s easier to remember if it’s put to melody.”

“...I’m sorry, you’ve lost me. Didn’t you and your brothers grow up on the battlefield?”

“Mostly. But before that, my older brother had a pretty good education. He liked to turn little bits of poetry into songs.” Takasugi looked out the observatory window, a far-away look on his face. “Sometimes, during the war, he would sing them to himself in the early mornings when he thought no one else was awake.”

“But you heard him.”

“I have trouble sleeping past sunrise most of the time. The light wakes me up. But I usually lay there and try to go back to sleep until the others start to get up. So, yeah. I heard him.”

“Mm. That’s actually quite a sweet story. He sounds like an interesting man.”

Takasugi shrugged. “I guess.”

“So which was the one who jumped off the roof?”

“The third oldest, the one immediately younger than me.”

“Did he sing, too?”

“Oh, no. No, that was just the oldest. Although, he _is_ a surprisingly good dancer.”

Bansai chuckled. “Remind me what kind of battlefield you guys were growing up on, again?”

“Shut up. Everyone dances at victory parties after a big fight. I’ve seen you do it, too.”

“Only when I’m drunk.”

“Well, yeah. Same goes for my brother. He’s pretty self-conscious when he’s sober, but get a few drinks in him and he’ll be on the tabletop before you know it. The men used to do it on purpose, I think. Even I have to admit, he’s pretty good.”

“Better than drunk Bansai?”

“Everyone dances better than drunk Bansai. He just kind of flails his arms around.”

“Hey!”

“One who sings old poetry to himself in the morning and one who lets himself get talked into things like jumping off roofs and drunk dancing on tables,” Takechi said musingly. “Sounds about right, from what I’ve heard about growing up with siblings.”

“Yup. Incidentally, the youngest was the one daring him to jump off that roof in the first place.”

Makoto laughed. “Where were you when this was happening, Shinsuke-sama? Were you trying to talk them out of it, like a good big brother should?”

“Nah. I think they should be allowed to experience whatever consequences come as a result of their own stupid decisions.”

“...Shinsuke-sama, I don’t think that’s a very good big brother attitude.”

“Why? It sounds good to me.”

“That’s exactly what an only child would say. Shinsuke-sama, you’re supposed to _help_ them, and stop them from making stupid decisions.”

“Yeah, well. I was never very good at that part.” Takasugi took another drag on his pipe, looking...not quite sad, he didn’t do sad very well, but rather more contemplative. “If I had been, maybe I could have done more for them.”

“How do you mean.”

“Just something I think about every now and then. Like, for example, the youngest- he had some real self confidence issues and...I don’t know, that seems like the kind of thing that a brother should be able to help with.”

Bansai, Takechi, and Makoto shared a quick look of concern among themselves. The combination of drinking and smoking must have been starting to get to him, because none of them had ever heard Takasugi talk this way before.

“Self confidence issues how?” Bansai prodded gently.

“Scars.”

“Scars?”

“Mhm. You know how it is, when you’re fighting a war with a sword; you rack up a hefty collection of scars, eventually. Most of us tended to treat them as badges of honor, but not my little brother. I think he saw them as marks of weakness, and he was ashamed of them. Tried to cover them up as much as possible. I’m not sure if the others were really aware of it, but...I don’t know. If I was better at this kind of thing, I might have been able to help him get past that sooner, is all. I guess.”

A moment of silence followed Takasugi’s words.

“What happened to them?” Makoto asked cautiously. “Your brothers, I mean. Did they die, in the war?”

“No, no. They’re all still alive. They’re out there.”

“Do you think you’ll ever see them again?”

“Oh, definitely.” Takasugi smiled, staring out the observatory viewport at the stars rushing by. “I know I’ll see all of them again, sooner or later. And I’m looking forward to it.”

 

One day, completely out of the blue, the Yorozuya got hired by a wealthy client who had heard about them from a friend of a friend, or some such connection. They spent a long, long day cleaning an entire mansion top to bottom, but the big fat paycheck at the end of the day was worth all of it.

It wasn’t often that they found themselves with this much money. Obviously, the only thing to do was treat themselves to a nice dinner out at a fancy restaurant.

At Shinpachi’s suggestion, they invited Otae to come along. And, because they were bringing Otae and Kondo was more than likely going to show up at some point anyway, they decided to save everyone some trouble and invite him, too.

“I’m not going to pay for your food or anything,” Gintoki made sure to clarify. “But you can come, if you want.”

“That sounds great! Can I bring Toshi and Sougo?”

“I guess so, sure. But I’m not paying for them, either.”

“Of course, of course. Well, thanks for the invite! We’ll definitely be there.”

Kagura was the one who picked the restaurant; a very, _very_ fancy seafood place right on the beach. They ate outside, watching the sun set over the bay and enjoying the lovely breeze.

Or at least, they started out that way. Somewhere along the way, though, Kagura and Okita had stormed off to challenge a group of people playing beach volleyball to a match, dragging Shinpachi and Kondo along with them.

“I don’t think they’re going to win,” Otae remarked, watching Okita spike the ball into the back of Kagura’s head and then pretend it was an accident. “In fact, I’m still not entirely sure why they went out there in the first place.”

“Who cares? I say let them have their fun,” Gintoki said. “Let me drink in peace.”

“I’m actually with him on this one.” Hijikata watched the rapidly devolving chaos on the impromptu court, taking a sip of sake. “I like spending time with Kondo-san and Sougo, but it gets annoying after a while. Much more peaceful this way.”

“I can understand that point of view,” Otae sighed, refilling her own glass. “Sometimes I feel the same way about Shinpachi. I suppose that’s just the way it is with brothers, hmm? You love them, but you just want time to yourself sometimes without having to worry about them.”

“My sentiments exactly, Otae-san.”

“I don’t know, with my brothers it was less of an ‘I’d like a break from you’ situation, and more of an ‘I’m going to slit your throats in your sleep if you so much as breathe in my direction’ kind of thing.”

Hijikata and Otae both stared at Gintoki.

“...What?”

“I didn’t know you had brothers, Gin-san!”

“First I’ve heard of it, too.”

“Oh. Well, yeah. Three brothers, two older and one younger.”

Hijikata shook his head, grinning. “One of you is already such a hassle, I’m having a hard time imagining _four_.”

“We’re not all the same, asshole. We’re pretty different, actually.”

“Tell us about them!” Otae demanded, nudging Gintoki in the ribs with her elbow. “I want to hear about your brothers. Go on, tell us a story!”

The little voice of reason in the back of Gintoki’s head argued that this might not be a good idea, but he decided, what the hell. All three of them were tipsy enough by now that it probably didn’t matter what he said, anyway.

“My oldest brother,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially, “is an idiot. He’s the stupidest goddamn idiot I have ever met in my life, and that is his most defining quality.”

“Oh, come on. That’s what everyone says about their older siblings.”

“No, I’m not kidding! I’m serious, that’s the only way to describe him. He once burned down an entire house trying to bake a cake.”

Otae nearly spit sake all over the table trying to hold in a laugh. “He what?!” she gasped, holding a napkin in front of her face.

“Yep. We used to break into noblemen’s summer houses whenever we could- don’t look at me like that, Hijikata, they weren’t using them- and use them as a place to crash for a few nights, y’know? Usually in the winter, just to get out of the snow. Anyway, one day we were in one of these fancy-ass houses and my brother decides he’s going to bake a cake. Why, you ask? I have absolutely no idea. I never have any clue what’s going on in his head. I took my eyes off him for _ten minutes_ to deal with an issue for some of my men and when I get back, the entire oven is engulfed in flames.”

Gintoki mimed a small explosion with his free hand, while Otae laughed so hard she was in danger of falling out of her chair and Hijikata even smiled a bit in spite of himself.

“We had to march all day to get away from that town. God, it was horrible. And I didn’t even get any cake out of it!”

“Sounds like something Yamazaki would do. Well? What about the others?”

“Mmm. My other older brother is...an asshole. He’s honestly just the worst, dealing with him is always such a pain. He’s stubborn, he’s completely antisocial, and his only hobby is bullying people for fun.”

“That one sounds more like Okita-san. Am I right, Hijikata-san?”

“Took the words right out of my mouth.”

“He stole all my clothes one time. I’m still mad about it.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“As a prank, I mean. I was taking a bath in a river or something like that, and he took my clothes while I wasn’t looking. So I ran back to camp to get some new ones, and that bastard had taken _all_ my clothes. Every article of clothing I had to my name was just gone. I was wet, cold, and trapped in my tent.”

Hijikata actually laughed out loud at that, apparently no longer able to contain himself. “He does sound like Sougo! That’s exactly the kind of thing he’d enjoy.”

“Oh, he did enjoy it. That fucker, I’ve never seen him laugh so hard in his entire life. I was the laughingstock of the entire army for weeks after that.”

“Oh no, that’s terrible,” Otae choked out, clutching her sides. “Oooh, I can’t breathe...what about the last one, hmm? You said he was younger than you, right?”

“Yeah, my one younger brother. Another complete idiot, a total lost cause. I’m telling you, talking to him is like talking to a chimp in a human’s clothing, never really knowing whether he understood what you said to him or not.”

“Aww, don’t be mean!”

“He deserves it! God, I remember once we tried to teach him how to swim- before getting in the water we made sure, explicitly, to tell him not to panic. We explained all the rest of it too but I distinctly remember saying the words ‘do not panic’. What’s the first thing he does when his feet aren’t touching the bottom any more? Panic. He grabbed me by the neck and nearly drowned the both of us! Laugh if you want, but it wasn’t very funny at the time.”

By this point Otae had her face buried in her hands and was shaking with fits of laughter. Hijikata was downright giggling- clearly an effect of the sake, but far enough out of character to make Gintoki laugh, too.

“Man,” he said once he had control of himself again, “sometimes I wonder how all of us made it out without anybody stabbing anybody else.”

“I take back what I said. I think I might actually like to meet your brothers.”

“Yeah, I just bet you would, Hijikata. Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll have your chance one day.” Gintoki looked past the beach, out towards the horizon. “They have a habit of turning up when I least want them to. Tell you what, next time one of them drops by I’ll introduce you, and you can judge their idiocy for yourself.”

 

“Look alive people, we’re taking off in five!”

Sakamoto clapped his hands for emphasis, making his way to his captain’s chair and sitting down, hastily checking the ship’s stats on the front monitor.

“All systems are go, and all decks have checked in,” the man at the helm said loudly.

“Cleared for takeoff,” shouted the woman at the communications station.

“Great. Commence takeoff!”

“Yes sir!”

The ship lifted smoothly and uneventfully off the ground and rocketed into the planet’s atmosphere, picking up speed all the way until they were successfully clear of the gravity well.

“Set course for the next system, helm. We’ve got business there.”

“Course laid in, sir. We should be there in just a day or two, conditions permitting.”

“Excellent! Good job, everyone.” Sakamoto smiled around at his bridge crew, relaxing back in his chair. Takeoffs and landings were often the most strenuous and complicated part of space travel, and even though he was working with experienced people, a part of him still worried every time.

“Is that a new haircut, captain?” one of the crew asked, glancing back from his station.

“Why, yes it is! Nice of you to notice.”

“It looks good, sir!”

“Thank you, lieutenant. Actually, Mutsu found out that I usually cut my own hair and she positively insisted that I get it professionally done. She’ll be glad to hear that you liked it.”

“You- you cut your own hair…?”

“Yeah, see, that’s exactly what Mutsu said. What’s wrong with it, huh?!”

“Captain, just go to a barber! It’s not that expensive, and it’s their job!”

“Hey, hey, don’t you guys gang up on me, too! C’mon, jeez. It’s a matter of _pride_.”

“Your hair.”

“Yeah!” Sakamoto crossed his arms and slouched a little in his chair. “Well, not so much the hair as the...y’know, the fact that you did it yourself. Having control over your own appearance. Does that make sense?”

The crew just kind of shrugged at him.

“I guess it is kind of an antiquated belief. But in the Joui War, that’s just sort of the way things were back then. When you’re at war, you’ve got to have something to have control over, you know?”

“I suppose that makes sense.”

Sakamoto’s frown deepened. “Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, maybe it was just something the rest of us picked up on from my brother…”

“Brother, sir?”

“Yes, the eldest of my three older brothers. He’s always had really long hair. When the war started a lot of people told him he should cut it, so that no one would be able to grab it in battle or anything like that. But he refused. He always took really good care of it, and it just got longer and longer.” Sakamoto shrugged. “We didn’t have much in the way of worldly possessions. It’s nice to be able to take pride in something that’s uniquely yours, even if it’s just hair.”

“With all due respect sir,” the helmsman said, “you’re not at war anymore. You have plenty to take pride in. You should probably let a barber take care of your hair.”

“Hah, I suppose you’re right. Ok, ok, point taken.”

“I think I can relate to your brother,” someone else piped up. “It’s kind of like people who spoil their pets rotten, right?”

“Maybe? I don’t know, none of us ever had any pets. If anything, I’d say that that sounds more like my second-eldest brother than any of the rest of us. He loves animals. Probably more than people. I remember he was always giving bits of his rations to stray dogs or cats. And when we ran out of food, he always staunchly refused to do the fishing. I kinda wish we could have had a normal childhood, so he could have had a pet like a normal kid. I don’t think he has any now, either. Shame. Oh, but my other brother has a dog!”

“What kind?”

“Ummm...I don’t know actually! But he’s big and white.”

Sakamoto paused for a moment to fiddle with a couple of buttons on the arm of his chair, making some minute adjustments to their course. Then he leaned back again, watching the stars outside the front viewport.

“My third brother is really something,” he said absently. “He’s nothing like the rest of us. He’s so good with people. He was always the one we counted on to bring the men’s morale up, no matter what was going on. He could turn a sure defeat into a victory that way. But more than that, he’s...I don’t know how to describe it, he’s just _so good_ with people. Kids, especially. He has this way of turning all the terrible things that happened to us growing up into kindness and respect for kids. I’ve always been a little jealous of that.”

“Do you get to see your family often, captain?”

“No, not really. Not nearly as much as I’d like.” Sakamoto smiled. “What do you guys say? After this next trip, think we should make time for a stop on Earth?”

A chorus of wholehearted agreements rang out across the bridge, and he laughed.

“Alright, the people have spoken! Earth it is, then. Earth it is.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone, thank you for reading! I really liked writing this, it's something I've been meaning to get around to for a long while now.
> 
> The sibling-like relationship that these four boys share between themselves is really important to me- probably because I have three siblings of my own! I even based the order of ages in this fic on me and my family, haha. I assure you, I'm always telling stories about my siblings, whether or not anyone actually asked about them. Obviously the Joui Four don't really have the liberty of doing so as often or as freely as I do, since I imagine that they tend to keep their relationship kinda on the down low. But I'm sure that even they make exceptions, sometimes.
> 
> Thanks again for reading! <3


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